Death and Remarriage as Alimony-Terminating Events: A California History

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Abstract

In California the default rule is that alimony entitlements terminate on the instant of either ex-spouse’s death or the supported ex-spouse’s remarriage. It was not always so. The remarkable evolution of this rule and its main exception is entangled with the more general historical development of California alimony law. In this essay I examine the ancestry, from 1872 through the early 1970s, of the death-and-remarriage contingency for alimony awarded by court order or party agreement.